Tax credits and irregular income

[Dizzydodo]

So confused if it would be worth applying for tax credits and how to work out how much we would get, hoping for some advice on our situation:

I work 18.5 hours a week, annual salary is just under 15k I do a salary sacrifice for childcare vouchers of £243 a month, weekly childcare costs for dd (18 months) are approx £110 a week so I use my vouchers and pay out of my take home pay as well.

Dh has his own business (50% share, they are both manual directors). They pay themselves nmw and take dividends on an ad hoc basis. Business does fairly well, they've turned a profit every year and increased the amount they take each year. Dh reckons on paper he earns 19k a year, but is is sometimes more if they take more dividends, such as last year when we got a new mortgage and other director wanted bigger dividend to put towards house deposit. Others is they would have left it in the business.

Entitled too calculator suggests we could get nearly £90 a month tax credits, but it only asked my gross pay and the amount it calculated I pay in tax, NI, pension is less than it said because of the salary sacrifice. Does this make a difference? Also don't understand how it would work with dh's irregular income, would we just do it on his basic salary and then tell them when he took a dividend or do they work it out on what he warned last year? Could I keep doing the childcare vouchers too? As if not I'm not sure the amount I would get would be much more than what I save via that? Also the calculator says under universal credit we would get nothing but that's not coming into effect until 2018 and dd would be getting her -5 hours free then (and we would hopefully have another dc by then), is it worth putting in a claim for tax credits?

on the income I would check out if it is better not to use the childcare vouchers.if you are under a certain income, you will be much better off claiming the childcare element of tax credits instead.

better off calculator:

www.gov.uk/childcare-vouchers-better-off-calculator

Tax credits if you're self employed or have fluctuating income is tricky because HMRC operate on a current year estimate, which they confirm and correct after you've submitted your Tax Return in the January after the end of the tax year - which means you might get an additional lump sum payment, but more likely, they'll calculate an overpayment that you'll have to pay back.

Your husband is an employee so his regular salary is just that

the dividends come under a different box in the tax credits form that is automatically spread across the year

you'll need to do the online form every six months
and he'll have to pay to have his accounts reviewed quarterly
but its well worth it to tide you over till his business grows above the limit